


Does Count After All

by afteriwake



Series: Sherlolly Spring Fling - April/May 2017 [28]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Broken Bones, Bruises, Caretaker Molly Hooper, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Happy Ending, Injured Sherlock, Love Confessions, Mentioned Irene Adler, Molly Does Count, Molly is a Good Friend, POV Molly Hooper, Partial Nudity, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Trusts Molly Hooper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 02:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11049591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: When Sherlock requests Molly’s help as a medical professional during his task taking down Moriarty’s network, Molly wonders why. She finds out the answer to that...and so much more.





	Does Count After All

**Author's Note:**

> I was asked ages ago by **rottenbrainstuff** , when I was offering to write cheer-up fic for some fandom wank, to write the following: " _I would absolutely love and adore and be beyond-all-words cheered up by Sherlock attempting to confess his feelings only to be misunderstood by Molly who assumes that she doesn't and will never count, with a happy fluffy ending. If you are able to!_ " I apologize it has taken so long for this to be written, but it was claimed by an Anon user for Sherlolly Spring Fling and I finally got an idea I fell in love with and I hope you enjoy it too.

She was rather surprised that she was sent to him. She had asked Mycroft, when he had her kidnapped on her way to the tube after a long shift at Barts, when all she wanted to do was go home and have a long soak and a glass or two or three of wine and maybe a good cry as well, if he was hurt _badly_ , and she had been assured he wasn’t, but why her? Surely even in this cat and mouse game, even in this great hour of secrecy, there were other people he could rely on? She supposed even spies needed doctors, discrete people who could operate on bullet wounds and knife cuts without a word to local hospitals?

Why didn’t Sherlock see one of them?

Why _her_?

He had said she counted at Barts, the day he fell. But he hadn’t meant it, she was sure. She counted in the ways she knew that mattered to him: she was an above average specialist registrar, a competent pathologist, she gave him anything and everything he wanted from her stores and she gave him space when he worked in the path lab. And maybe there was a bit more than that. Never once did she judge him, did she utter anything like the words that came from Sally’s mouth or even the exasperated utterings from Greg or John. She accepted him as he was, admired him…

Loved him.

But she didn’t count.

She loved him, but to him, she was a tool. And in his hour of need, it had counted that the best tools in his arsenal were there. That was all it was.

That was all this was, too.

She had expected something dingy and dirty, but she was surprised at the rather lush surroundings inside the building housing Sherlock. What she had seen had shown this was not a prosperous region, but she was starting to think, perhaps, looks were deceiving in this village’s case. Mostly because she suspected this village might be full of former British spies, but that might also be her imagination running away with her. Whatever it was, it projected a dirty, impoverished place on the outside, but there had not been a single villager who she had encountered who looked underfed or unhealthy or unhappy. She suspected those who lived here had a very good life if the comforts of this room were anything to go by.

“Molly,” she heard Sherlock say softly. She looked and saw that he was sitting at a small table, his face bruised and swollen, cradling his arm. She stared at him, aghast. In a place like this, how had no one given him proper medical care? What absolute imbeciles had let him stay like this for the time it had taken her to reach him.

“Sherlock,” she said, abandoning the pose of medical professionalism she had promised herself she would take and going to him, gently cradling his face. “What happened?”

“I was on the wrong end of a cricket bat,” he said, trying to give her a half-hearted smile, she thought, but failing. She shook her head and immediately began to work. It had been a long time since she had set a broken arm, especially without the guidance of an x-ray machine, but she did her best, putting it in a splint and wrapping it as best she could. She was glad she had been aware of what his potential injuries could have been and had brought the appropriate supplies. She knew that it was suspected he had broken ribs, and that would require taping them, which would mean he would need to remove his undershirt. She focused on the purpling bruise on his shoulder and bit her lip, knowing it would be immensely painful for him to lift his arm. “Cut it off.”

“Pardon?”

“Cut the shirt off,” he said.

She nodded, then went into her bag for her scissors. “Why weren’t you looked at sooner, Sherlock?” she asked.

“I don’t trust anyone here aside from the owner of this house,” he replied. “I had done her a great favor in the past and I am collecting upon it. She said there are many here whose loyalties could be easily bought and swayed to Moriarty’s minions.”

Molly nodded, grasping the scissors and moving to him, beginning to cut off his shirt when she got close enough. “But you trust her?”

“I do.” He bit his lip and looked at her. “I trust her, but there are none I trust more than you, Molly. I trust you to keep me alive.”

Molly stopped cutting and looked at him, their eyes nearly level. “But I don’t count.”

She could see confusion enter his gaze. “You do, though. I told you you do.”

Molly licked her lips slightly. “I had tea with the owner of the house before I came up here. You told me she was dead.”

Sherlock groaned. “I _should_ kill her,” he muttered. “Irene is someone I care for, in one way, yes. But not the way I care for you. She is a friend. You are...more than that.”

“But you knew what she looked like naked.”

“Because she decided to introduce herself to me without a stitch of clothing on,” he said. “She’s the type of woman who will use anything to her advantage. She had blackmail, I wanted it. She decided to use her sexual prowess to her advantage, I made her put on my coat. If there is anyone with those measurements whose naked image I would rather have emblazoned in my mind palace it would be you, not her.”

Molly’s eyes widened and she dropped the scissors onto Sherlock’s lap, though thankfully they did not land point downward. “What?”

“I am trying to say, without much success apparently, that I fancy you. I trust you. You do count t me, in more ways than I can name and I would be quite happy if you would wait for me to finish this task and then we can see about attempting a relationship. I don’t guarantee I will be _good_ at it, but I will try. I will try my hardest because that, Molly Hooper, is what you deserve.” She felt tears come to her eyes at that, tears of joy and happiness, and Sherlock frowned. “Molly?”

Molly leaned forward and carefully cradled his face in her hands again, leaning in just a bit more after that to close the distance and pressed her lips to his, kissing him softly. He kissed her back, reaching for her to pull against him but then suddenly pulling away from the kiss, hissing in pain. “You’re injured, Sherlock,” she admonished, stroking the uninjured side of his face. “Let me check your ribs to see if taping them would help, and then we’ll get you to bed to rest.”

“And you’ll stay with me for a while?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

She nodded, a soft smile on her face. “I’ll stay as long as I can, and then I’ll wait for you to get back to London,” she said before giving him a quick kiss. “However long it takes.” The serene smile on Sherlock’s face was honestly the most dazzling sight she’d ever seen, and to know this man, _this man_ , wanted her and that her returning his feelings had put that smile on his face...she would never doubt she counted again, she was sure of it.


End file.
